The really quick, comfort-food one is pasta with lentils, an Egyptian Jewish recipe from Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food. Sauté a sliced onion in olive oil with cumin, coriander and cinnamon, and garlic; add a tin of green or brown lentils; once it's cooked, season with salt and pepper and put on pasta. Serves 2-3 depending on how hungry you are. Generally needs a dab of margarine/butter to go with, and I've been known to add a sliced tomato to the pan near the end.

Hey,
I am not vegetarian, but we eat at least one veggie dinner a week. I love roasted veggies with fresh basil and cilantro & garlic. And then a nice black bean burger. My doctor is a cradle vegetarian and she said the hard part is really getting all the vitamins you need and she said she has always had to take a 'good' amount of B vitamins, just FYI.

Good Cookbook is from the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca NY (love this restaurant, only about 40 minutes from where I live) You can find it on line or at Barnes & Nobles. Hope you check it out!

veggie enchilada pasta:
6 oz whole wheat shell pasta
3 smallish zucchini
3 smallish summer squash
1 lb 12 oz can of crushed tomatoes
16 oz jar of (medium heat) enchilada sauce
12 pkg of frozen corn
hot ro*tel
can of black beans, rinsed and drained
can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 T minced garlic
an entire bunch of green onions
and all of the spices in copious amounts - cumin, chili powder, and cayenne pepper. I like spicy and hot.
In large pot, sauté zucchini and squash in a little oil, salt and pepper until softened a bit. Take out of pan and set aside.
Add onions and garlic to pot and let them cook for a few minutes. Add in the beans, tomatoes/rotel, spices and enchilada sauce. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors mix together.
Add in pasta and more water, if needed. Let the pasta cook in the pot.
Once the pasta is cooked, stir in the corn and the zucchini and squash. I waited until the end to add the squash back in so it wouldn’t get too soggy.

My doctor is a cradle vegetarian and she said the hard part is really getting all the vitamins you need and she said she has always had to take a 'good' amount of B vitamins, just FYI.

Really? I thought it was meat-eaters who tended to be short on vitamins, since they tend to lurk in plant foods? I certainly get huge amounts of B vitamins from my diet, and I'm vegan. Even without the nutritional yeast, which I have a small amount of a few times a week (mostly in fake parmesan, together with ground almonds, miso and salt), my vitamins are all nicely high. The areas I tend to have to concentrate on more are the minerals, but hey, all diets have areas where you have to work a little harder. And oddly enough for someone on a wholefoods diet with lots of veg, I have to work at fibre, but I think that's because I'm eating 1100 calories and the usual fibre recommendations are for people on 2000 calorie diets, so it's naturally harder to get as much fibre in just over half the amount of calories.

Another favourite recipe in this household is pasta primavera. Sauté assorted green vegetables in olive oil and put on pasta, usually with basil pesto and/or some sort of green beany thing (e.g. frozen baby broad beans). Pine nuts or almonds together with raisins and a pinch of ground coriander is an alternative way of seasoning it, bringing it more to Middle Eastern than Italian. Broccoli, courgette [zucchini], artichoke hearts, spinach, leeks, peas, that sort of thing. I don't eat cheese but I'm sure you could add it quite easily. Colourful and fabulous and you know, I haven't made it in ages, this is actually a good reminder.

I agree, Esofia. The bulk of our vitamins come from plant foods. I think the doctor mis-stated herself when she mentioned the vitamins. Doctors traditionally recommend B12 for vegans, though vegans as yourself that eat nutritional yeast don't even need to take B12. I really think the doc wasn't paying attention to what she was saying.

My GO-TO veggie meal is my vegetarian chili. It's only as good as I say it is if you use the same brands of ingredients, especially the seasoning, anything else will give a completely different flavor and I don't have a clue what it will taste like but it won't taste like mine

crockpot beans, veggies & seasonings to taste. I go Mexican, Italian, French, Indian, African with PB,or eclectic depending on my mood and what beans I have. In the winter i make a pot every weekend for quick weeknight meals.

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy skillet, toss in about a cup of chopped onion, and when the onions are almost soft, add 3 or 4 cloves of minced garlic and some red pepper flakes. Stir, and add a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas, and let cook until the chickpeas start to pop. Add several handfuls of baby spinach leaves and let them cook down, then add a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes. Shave a little pecorino or parmesan cheese over each serving. I get barely two servings from this, depending on how hungry I am.

This is the basic model but anything with beans, tomatoes, some spice, & PB. Sweet potatoes are also a good addition. My favorite cafe serves an African Peanut Butter Stew that has sweet potatoes and, I think, garbanzos and is amazing.